But there were several children in another intensive care unit on
Tuesday. Among them was Ismael Hamdan, 8, who had severe brain damage
as well as two broken legs, according to a doctor there. Earlier that
day, two of his sisters, Lama, 5, and Hayya, 12, were killed.

“I
prepared them breakfast that day in the garden,” said their mother,
Ayda, 36. “They had the tea, bread and thyme. Lama wanted a second
pita, but we all teased her saying, ‘Keep it for lunch.’ She told us,
‘Don’t worry, God will provide us with bread.’

“She made all of
us laugh,” the mother said. “I cleaned after them and collected the
garbage. Ismael volunteered to dump the garbage, but Hayya and Lama
joined him. The garbage can is in front of the house, a five-minute
walk away. All of a sudden I heard the news from a neighbor, and I ran
barefoot to the hospital. A relative collected the bodies of Lama and
Hayya on a donkey cart.

“The neighbors ran trying to save
Ismael, who was the only one breathing,” she said. “They say my kids
flew 40 meters before hitting the ground.”

This is a great interview on the issues of copyright and monetization on the Web. Lessig is refreshingly open and optimistic about the way the Internet supports creatives and creativity, and the conversation is a great example of two paradigms working together to give birth to something brand new.

From the NPR site:

December 22, 2008 · In his new book Remix,
law professor Lawrence Lessig explores the changing landscape of
intellectual property in the digital age — and argues that antiquated
copyright laws should be updated.

Lessig is a columnist for Wired and the chair of Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that promotes the legal sharing, repurposing and remixing of creative work.

There are now more slaves on the planet than at any
time in human history. True abolition will elude us until we admit the
massive scope of the problem, attack it in all its forms, and empower
slaves to help free themselves.

Standing in New York City, you are five
hours away from being able to negotiate the sale, in broad daylight, of
a healthy boy or girl. He or she can be used for anything, though sex
and domestic labor are most common. Before you go, let’s be clear on
what you are buying. A slave is a human being forced to work through
fraud or threat of violence for no pay beyond subsistence. Agreed? Good.

Most people imagine that slavery died in the 19th century. Since
1817, more than a dozen international conventions have been signed
banning the slave trade. Yet, today there are more slaves than at any
time in human history.

And if you’re going to buy one in five hours, you’d better get a
move on. First, hail a taxi to JFK International Airport, and hop on a
direct flight to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The flight takes three hours.
After landing at Toussaint L’Ouverture International Airport, you will
need 50 cents for the most common form of transport in Port-au-Prince,
the tap-tap, a flatbed pickup retrofitted with benches and a canopy.
Three quarters of the way up Route de Delmas, the capital’s main
street, tap the roof and hop out. There, on a side street, you will
find a group of men standing in front of Le Réseau (The Network)
barbershop. As you approach, a man steps forward: “Are you looking to
get a person?”

Meet Benavil Lebhom. He smiles easily. He has a trim mustache and
wears a multicolored, striped golf shirt, a gold chain, and Doc Martens
knockoffs. Benavil is a courtier, or broker. He holds an official real
estate license and calls himself an employment agent. Two thirds of the
employees he places are child slaves. The total number of Haitian
children in bondage in their own country stands at 300,000. They are
the restavèks, the “stay-withs,” as they are euphemistically
known in Creole. Forced, unpaid, they work in captivity from before
dawn until night. Benavil and thousands of other formal and informal
traffickers lure these children from desperately impoverished rural
parents, with promises of free schooling and a better life.

The negotiation to buy a child slave might sound a bit like this:

“How quickly do you think it would be possible to bring a child in?
Somebody who could clean and cook?” you ask. “I don’t have a very big
place; I have a small apartment. But I’m wondering how much that would
cost? And how quickly?”

“Three days,” Benavil responds.

“And you could bring the child here?” you inquire. “Or are there children here already?”

“I don’t have any here in Port-au-Prince right now,” says Benavil,
his eyes widening at the thought of a foreign client. “I would go out
to the countryside.”

You ask about additional expenses. “Would I have to pay for transportation?”

“Bon,” says Benavil. “A hundred U.S.”

Smelling a rip-off, you press him, “And that’s just for transportation?”

“Transportation would be about 100 Haitian,” says Benavil, or around
$13, “because you’d have to get out there. Plus [hotel and] food on the
trip. Five hundred gourdes.”

“Okay, 500 Haitian,” you say.

Now you ask the big question: “And what would your fee be?” This is
the moment of truth, and Benavil’s eyes narrow as he determines how
much he can take you for.

“A hundred. American.”

“That seems like a lot,” you say, with a smile so as not to kill the deal. “How much would you charge a Haitian?”

Benavil’s voice rises with feigned indignation. “A hundred dollars. This is a major effort.”

You hold firm. “Could you bring down your fee to 50 U.S.?”

Benavil pauses. But only for effect. He knows he’s still got you for much more than a Haitian would pay. “Oui,” he says with a smile.

But the deal isn’t done. Benavil leans in close. “This is a rather
delicate question. Is this someone you want as just a worker? Or also
someone who will be a ‘partner’? You understand what I mean?”

You don’t blink at being asked if you want the child for sex. “I mean, is it possible to have someone that could be both?”

“Oui!” Benavil responds enthusiastically.

If you’re interested in taking your purchase back to the United
States, Benavil tells you that he can “arrange” the proper papers to
make it look as though you’ve adopted the child.

He offers you a 13-year-old girl.

“That’s a little bit old,” you say.

“I know of another girl who’s 12. Then ones that are 10, 11,” he responds.

The negotiation is finished, and you tell Benavil not to make any
moves without further word from you. Here, 600 miles from the United
States, and five hours from Manhattan, you have successfully arranged
to buy a human being for 50 bucks.

The Cruel Truth

It would be nice if that conversation, like the description of the
journey, were fictional. It is not.

I've gotten a lot of questions about my thoughts about Warren--a FB thread from today.

YA at 8:00pm December 18Can a government function with so many rivals in interdependent positions to each other?

RC at 8:17pm December 18I am asking myself the same question. I am also very disappointed with his choice regarding Warren. What is your take on that Rebecca?

Rebecca Walker at 8:51pm December 18YA-The 1,000,000,000,000,000 dollar question. Literally. But as a microcosm of the world, let's hope so. I'm moved, at the very lest, by the audacity of it. RC: Still percolating. But you can't say it's not a bold choice.

ST at 3:11pm December 19I think we need to say it, and say it loud: warren, no matter how you cook him, is anti-woman, anti-gay... and anti-obama. yes, he's allowed his views, and isn't it neato we can all acknowledge that. but irregardless: I'm beyond disappointed.

Rebecca Walker at 3:51pm December 19We will see what we shall see. The real question is whether he can pull it all off. Safeguarding individual rights and forging greater freedoms and more equitable distribution of wealth while maintaining openness and civility is what needs to happen. We will know more about whether or not it's possible in the next two to two hundred years--if we have that long.

ST at 4:46pm December 19I'm not sure i follow... to me, warren is not about what you write in yr 3rd sentence.

Rebecca Walker at 4:56pm December 19The inauguration is not the thing. the thing is what happens after. Can obama pull off sentence three and include voices and views like warrens in the social fabric of our country and, more importantly, the world. That is the question.

MM at 5:55pm December 19Do you per chance have concern over why Lowery isn't getting any press or even thanks for being supportive of the LGBT community? This is such multilayered spin with the media that I can't begin to unpack it or reframe...I'm trying. I hope you will share a bit your thoughts when you gather them..

Rebecca Walker at 9:17pm December 19Yes, the Lowery choice is being oddly overlooked--a black, pro-lgbt christian civil rights leader. in the black christian often homophobic community, he is not a choice pick. I think folks need to stay calm and, ironically, have faith. to doubt ourselves so soon after all that work....undermines our own power. We believed. Give him some time.

He's going to have to make many, many more decisions that are uncomfortable. and in terms of what is about to happen to the country financially, this kind of peacemaking between camps may be essential to keeping the country from devolving into a civil war. There are global concerns much larger than gay marriage. Like china's cannibalization of africa and penetration of southern asia. Like fundamentalist islam bringing sharia law to the west.

Rebecca Walker at 9:20pm December 19My feeling is he will not abandon any group--but he's got to be able to play ball not just on behalf of gay marriage, but America and beyond that, the separation of church and state and the global fundamental rights of sovereign nations. i mean really. I could go on, but i think you get my point. stay calm.

Rebecca Walker at 9:26pm December 19I think this is one of the many ways obama is managing this situation and i think he's moving in the right direction.

So happy to share this starred review of the new book in today's KIRKUS:

A moving, wildly diverse collection showing how radically different familial configurations can work.

Prompted
by her experiences growing up in a family "fragmented and haunted by
unfulfilled longings," Walker (Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood After a
Lifetime of Ambivalence, 2007, etc.) looks beyond her well-publicized
estrangement from her mother, novelist Alice Walker, to the lives of
other writers "searching for authenticity through experimentation" in
their domestic situations. The essays she assembles smash class, race
and gender stereotypes to collectively demonstrate the fluidity of the
contemporary family unit. Resisting the traditional boundaries of
coupledom, Jenny Block, on the one hand, celebrates the openness of
what she calls a "polyamorous marriage" with her husband and her
girlfriend. On the other hand, Judith Levine and her boyfriend,
together for 17 years, never married for a number of practical and
philosophic reasons. Writes Levine: "A marriage may or may not be a
union of love. It is always a union of property...I'd like the state to
get out of the sexual-licensing business altogether, actually, for
couples gay, straight, bi, or none of the above." Essays by Dan Savage
and Dawn Friedman lay bare the highs and lows of open adoption. Savage
details the difficulty he and his partner have in deciding what to say
to their adoptive son when his homeless, substance-abusing biological
mother drops out of touch for more than a year: "Which two-by-four to
hit him with? That his mother was in all likelihood dead? Or that she
was out there somewhere but didn't care enough to come by or call?"
Friedman, while admitting to occasional twinges of jealousy and guilt
evoked by having her daughter's birth mother integrated into their
lives, trumpets openness for her daughter's sake: "She will never have
to wonder why her first mother chose adoption; she can ask her."
Rebecca Barry closes the anthology with a frank, humorous exploration
of how she and her sister ended up in couples therapy.

Eye-opening and sometimes shocking, as it brilliantly explodes traditional notions about the nuclear family.

(A star is assigned to books of unusual merit, determined by the editors of Kirkus Reviews.)

"Half a century after Deutsche, Susie Orbach, Kim Chernin and others
argued that young women's expanding career opportunities can (albeit
not always) arouse a mother's envy. A daughter may hold herself back,
terrified that, if she does surpass her mother, she will be forced to
eat of those proverbial poisoned apples - in the form of maternal
disapproval, disdain, guilt. Or, she may hope to win approval by her
success, only to find that success does not give her mother pleasure;
instead, her mother responds with envy, which a daughter experiences as
disapproval."

This is a hotly debated subject, amd
many experts deny and reframe what looks like maternal envy as maternal
concern. And yet I hear from so many women who have felt undermined by
their mothers. And mothers who have struggled with their jealousy of
their daughters.

My feeling is not enough light has been
shed on the subject, and, like mental illness, the kind of wounding
that occurs in many mother daughter relationships is even more
devastating because daughters are considered ungrateful for voicing
their feelings, and punished accordingly. Especially in the black
community, when so many mothers have had to work so hard for so long.
The idea of expressing any kind of upset is unthinkable. And yet, as
Audre Lorde wrote, "Our silence will not protect us."

What about you? Have you experienced any of these kinds
of maternal conflicts? Either as a mother yourself or as a daughter?

What a great job Obama is doing (and how saddened I am by how many are so critical
so soon), the auto company bailout and why it's not "cost effective"
for the big 3 to go green, the staggering number of people losing jobs,
and the theme I've hit several times since the Olympics: China's
devastating invasion of parts of Africa.

But right now I want to have a moment about ADHD, Ritalin, and prevailing attitudes about mental health.

Today
at the health food store I overheard a conversation between a Dad, the
person ringing up his groceries, and a woman on line.

The
Dad said his daughter was diagnosed with ADHD, and Ritalin was working
well. He said she's been experiencing a lot of success in school and at
home and "her turn-around" was "like a miracle." The checker gave an
enthusiastic high-five. "Hey man, that's so great."

Then
the woman chimed in with anecdotal information about an Omega 3
supplement that "helped the son of a friend." She tried to remember the
name of the supplement, and while reaching for the name, suggested Dad
try it.

Dad suddenly looked ashamed and embarrassed. He said
he had "read some studies" about the supplement and was hoping to "get
some soon." He really wanted to get his daughter off the Ritalin, he
said. Because although she was doing better, he "hated being duped by
the drug companies," who probably "invented ADHD in the first place."

The
woman nodded, and agreed. "It's worth a shot," she said, offering no
further information about her clinical credentials or the supplement
she suggested Dad try on the daughter who responded to Ritalin as if it
were "a miracle." "The overmedication of children in this country is a
crime," she said. "Have you tried taking her off wheat and sugar?"

At which point I had to tune out or risk an intervention.

Listen, I agree big pharma is problematic. I agree all kinds of illnesses are "created"
by drug marketers, a lot of kids are over medicated, and the whole
world should be focused on preventive care, and living holistically in
organic environments.

But sometimes illness actually
responds to Western medicine, and when it does, I for one am happy to
have access to it, not just for bone marrow transplants and the
shrinking of brain tumors, but for schizophrenia and bi-polar disease,
clinical depression and Tourette's.

I left the store wondering
when we as a culture will decide once and for all that mental wellness,
like any other kind of health, is worthy of pharmaceutical support.
When mental illness, like cancer or lupus or HIV, will finally be
deemed legitimate enough to warrant medication.

Mental
illness is nothing to be ashamed of. Like any other disease, it's
something to treat. Whether it's with herbs, meds, beets, or yoga
doesn't matter. What matters is that people--regardless of ideology,
religion or cultural taboos--get better, feel happier, and are more
able to make healthy decisions for themselves and the people they love.

To
continue our discussion of different kinds of power, I am thrilled
Obama has brought Samantha Power, who was forced to resign from Team
Obama during the campaign for calling Hillary Clinton "a monster," back
on board as part of the transition team--for the office of the
Secretary of State.

If you don't know about Samantha Power, here is an excerpt from Esquire:

Power, a journalist and
now a professor at Harvard, who won a Pulitzer prize for her 2003 book
on America's response to genocide, A Problem from Hell, and who
helped kick-start the Save Darfur movement, has a vision that will help
shape 21st-century American foreign policy. What Norman Podhoretz is to
the neocon movement Power is to this as-yet-unnamed force.
(Neo-internationalism? Moral interventionism? Machiavellian idealism?)
She espouses talks--firm talks--with rogue states, a respect for
international law, and a moral and pragmatic duty to intervene--with
troops if necessary--in cases of genocide.

I'm
happy she's back for a number of reasons: she's passionate about human
dignity and has a complex and pragmatic view of how to secure it. In other words, she's
tough and smart.
Heart
and head. Has a plan. A view. And her Pulitzer Prize winning book, A
Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, is endlessly
relevant, and gives her unique insight into
seemingly intractable hostilities, like the one between Israel and
Palestine.

Though she's been lambasted by Zionist groups who say she wants to do everything from fund
islamic terrorists to invade Israel, apparently her official
position is the US should engage in an immediate and intensified
involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. In her view, the
situation "has to be resolved first of all for the benefit of the
parties involved, but also to prevent "cynical Arab leaders" from
exploiting the conflict as a tool for justifying their policies."

I'm no expert, but this sounds like a rational approach to me.

But mostly I feel good about Power's
return because Obama's ability to bring her back in a leadership role
in HRC's realm says he feels free as POTUS to make controversial
decisions and continue to mix up ideological perspectives in the hopes
of reaching different conclusions. He's apparently using the power vested in him
to follow his agenda of change, rather than kowtow to personal gripes, party lines,
or general consensus.

Power should be an excellent and
necessary counterpoint to Hillary. Obama appears to believe the two
women, though different in approach, are stronger together than apart.

A
journalist from Corriere de la Sera called yesterday with an urgent
request for an interview about the Al-Qaeda claim that Obama is a house
negro. My comments hit the first page--with full spread on page 3.

Yesterday afternoon, in tandem with the essay on Michelle Obama, I joined a group of exceptional women including Anna Perez, the
former Press Secretary for Barbara Bush, Leslie Morgan Steiner, the
editor of the best-selling anthologyMommy Wars, and Jolene Ivey, co-founder of Mocha Moms, on Michel Martin's NPR show Tell Me More to talk about:

It was a fascinating conversation, but five intense women talking about
Michelle Obama for thirty-five minutes? We could have been there for
hours. I left the studio thinking about all the things I wished there
had been more time to say.

I wish the show had been called "What Michelle Obama is Gaining."

There was certainly more to say about the question of "power" vs
"influence." It's my view that Michelle has the opportunity to have a
tremendous amount of power--political, personal, ideological, symbolic,
financial, social, maternal, emotional, psychological-- but Anna Perez
opined Michelle will have influence, but because she can't write
legislation and doesn't have a vote on key issues, she won't have
power.

But there are different kinds of power. Laws change administration to
administration, but transforming the consciousness of a generation is
forever. Did Martin Luther King, Jr. have power or influence? Did
Jackie Kennedy want more power and less influence? How about Eleanor
Roosevelt? And what about our former First Lady, Hillary Clinton? She
almost because POTUS in large part as a result of her "influence." What
about the Nobel committee? Do they have power or influence? Freud and
Jung? Moses?

I was taken aback by Anna Perez's view, her privileging one realm, the
political, over what could be called the personal or communal, a view
that has disempowered women for centuries. And I was struck by how
difficult it seemed for many of the women in the conversation to see
Michelle as anything but a victim. Incredibly, they seemed to think she
was more powerful as a hospital administrator than First Lady.

We denigrate Michelle by denigrating her choices. Projecting an idea of
her as a deer in the headlights rather than a lioness on the plain
reflects a crisis of the imagination, and speaks volumes about what we
think is possible for a woman, or any human being, to negotiate.

People working to create a better world dismiss their accomplishment
at their own peril. They resign themselves to a lifetime of
disappointment.

What do you think? Do you have power or influence, power and influence, or no power and no influence?